Robert Asprin - Myth-ion Improbable

"Easy," I said.

Pulling in the energy I needed, I changed all of us into our local disguises. I gave us all black hats, and basically similar plaid shirts. Since I couldn't see beyond the clothes what my magik did when I disguised someone, I glanced at Glenda. "How do we look?"

"Perfect," she said. "Even Aahz's tan is red instead of green."

"Are we going to need horses?" I asked. "I can't do them."

"We might," Glenda said, looking frustrated. "Especially if the golden cow isn't close by. We might have to do some traveling, and, from what I remember, horses are the only means of travel here."

"Money?" Aahz asked. "We're going to need money as well."

"I don't think so," Glenda said. "This place doesn't use money."

I thought Aahz was going to have a heart attack. It was like telling him the sun would never come up again.

"So what do they use to trade and buy things with?" Tanda asked, also shocked at the very idea.

"Work," Glenda said. "Work is their capital."

Now I was just as lost as Aahz and Tanda looked.

Glenda went on. "You work for someone when you want something from them. They keep everything on IOU's. So if you want a drink or some food, you sign an IOU and then later you have to work off the debt."

"This is a strange place."

Glenda agreed and we started off down the hill, four strang­ ers walking into a town full of cowboys. I just hope my dis­ guises worked. Just in case, I stayed real close to Glenda. Not that that was a hardship or anything.

The town of Evade was active and primitive. The only street was appropriately enough called Main Street. It was dirt and hardened mud and very rough. It split two rows of wooden buildings with covered wooden sidewalks in front of them. Outside the main street were houses scattered through the farmlands, tucked into groves of strange-looking trees.

Music and laughter were coming from a number of the doors along Main Street. Bright-colored signs were over some of the doors, with names like Battlefield, Wild Horse, and Audry's. I had no idea what any of those names meant.

Horse-drawn wagons and single horses were tied up on rails along the wooden sidewalks, and the entire town smelled like horse droppings, of which there were some pretty good-sized piles spaced along the road.

A man with a white hat and a big shovel was slowly pick­ ing up fresh horse leavings and tossing them onto the piles. I wanted to ask him what debt he was trying to pay off, or what he was trying to buy, because whatever it was, the price was too high.

When we reached the main area of town we stepped up on the sidewalk on the left side and into the shade. Sud­denly I realized just how hot our walk from the cliff had been, and how lucky it was these people wore hats. The sun hadn't seemed that hot at first, after coming from Vor­tex #6, but now that we were in the shade, I realized how bad it was.

We strolled along the wooden sidewalk, trying to look as if we belonged. Of course, in a town that couldn't have more than a few hundred full-time residents, four newcom­ers stood out like a bad blister in new shoes.

"Howdy," the first man we passed said to us. He tipped his hat and just kept right on moving.

By the time I tipped my hat back, he was past us.

A woman in long skirts and a flower-patterned blouse walked past us a few moments later.

"Howdy," she said.

I tipped my hat, as did Aahz.

She smiled at us, showing some pretty strange-looking teeth.

After she was past us I glanced down at my neck to make sure the Translator Pendant that Tanda had given me was still there. It was, but it couldn't be working, because I had no idea what "howdy" meant.

I glanced at Tanda who just shrugged.

About a quarter of the way up the street into the town we stopped and leaned against a wooden wall and tried to look as if we were relaxed. No one was bothering us, or even paying us much attention. Across the street, high-energy music was coming out of the door labeled Audry's. I could see a number of people through the open door sitting at tables. It looked like a bar or restaurant of some sort.

"Now what?" Glenda asked, studying the man in the street who was picking up horse droppings.

"We're going to need information," Tanda said.

"And we just can't come out and ask for it," I said.

Everyone agreed.

"We're also going to need horses," Glenda said. "Unless you want to do more walking in this heat."

I glanced down the street at the open countryside beyond the limits of the small town. Walking back out into that for any distance would be a very bad idea.

We all agreed that we didn't want to do that as well.

"Well, we need two things," I said. "Information about the golden cow, and horses to get us to the treasure."

"Skeeve and I will try the place across the street," Glenda said. "You two head for another one farther along."

"All right," Aahz said, surprising me by agreeing to Glenda's plan. "We meet back in the cabin on Vortex #6 in one hour."

I made sure Glenda understood, since she was my ride out of here. Then we stepped into the street, making a wide turn around one of the large piles of horsepoop the guy was collecting.

He just smiled at us and said, "Howdy."

I tipped my hat at him and he seemed satisfied enough to go back to work.

I was right in all fashions about Audry's Place. It was clear as we went through the door that it was both a restaurant and a bar. The bar was wooden and long, stretching the entire length of the left wall as we entered. A hatless guy wearing a white apron stood behind the bar, a rag in his hands.

Three of the tables were occupied with a total of ten pa­ trons, all of them eating what looked to be large plates of vegetables. The music was loud and had a pretty good beat to it. It seemed like it was coming from a piano in the back, only there was no one sitting at the piano.

Every person in the place glanced up at us as we entered, then went back to eating and talking as if they saw strangers every day and just didn't care. I considered that a good sign.

"Howdy, folks," the guy behind the bar said, wiping a spot off the wood surface in front of him. "What's your pleasure?"

I had no idea what the guy meant. I sort of understood the words, but standing in the middle of a bar, I sure didn't understand why he was asking me about pleasure. Just a little too personal a question for someone I didn't know.

I glanced at Glenda, who seemed confused for a moment as well. Then she indicated I should follow her lead as she stepped toward the guy.

Glenda nodded her head at the bartender, sort of like tip­ping her hat as we reached the wide bar.

"A little something to drink, a little food, and a decent way to work off the debt." Clearly it had been the right thing to say, since the guy smiled like he had just hit the jackpot.

"Strangers are always welcome in my place," he said, reach­ ing behind him and getting two glasses off the counter on the back wall. He put them on the bar and looked at Glenda, then me. "What'll wet your whistle?"

At that moment I was really glad that Glenda was doing the talking. I was fairly certain he was asking what we wanted to drink, but I wasn't totally certain, and I had no idea what he had to offer that could do that to a whistle.

"Oh," she said, "whatever you have will be fine with us."

The guy grabbed a large bottle of orange liquid and filled both glasses to the top. Then he slid them to the edge of the bar in front of us.

"Thank you, kind sir," Glenda said.

Again the guy. beamed.

"Just grab a seat and I'll rustle you up some of my best grub."

At that moment I wanted to bang my translator pendant on the bar to make it work right.

"Nothing special," she said, smiling at the guy and winking.